No doubt lThe developers of the Fedora distribution have given much to talk about since the last semester of last year and also during the three months that have run this year and it is not to take lightly the effort they have shown since many important changes have been released for this popular Linux distribution.
And this time it is no exception Well, something important is about to happen inside Fedora and it is the project leader himself (Matthew Miller) who announced that it has taken the initiative to split the Fedora community and distribution names.
That is to say, inside the change proposed by Matthew Miller it is contemplated that said division on the one hand, the name "Fedora" is only related to the entire project and the associated community, while in the case of the distribution it is planned to be called Fedora Linux.
It is true that for many it may not represent a big deal while for another part of the community this movement is simply not to their liking (hopefully this does not result in a bifurcation due to some dissatisfaction as has happened in other distributions), but This change is thinking in order to make a division in relation to what is done and what is refers.
In other words, the reason for the change by name it is mentioned that the project Fedora is not limited to one distribution and is also developing the EPEL repository for RHEL / CentOS, documentation, websites and various tools. Therefore, when I say Fedora, I would like to refer to the entire project and not to one of the products that is created.
In it he announced made by the Fedora project leader It is mentioned that the requested name change is proposed for Fedora version 35 where it will be replacing the parameter 'NAME = Fedora' in the / etc / os-release file with 'NAME = »Fedora Linux»'.
When I talk about the Fedora Project, I mean you: the community. The Linux distribution we make is great, but the community is the key. When people say "Fedora" without a qualifier, I'd like them to think of "Project Fedora", not the bits we produce. In addition, we create more than one thing: EPEL, for example, in addition to artwork, documentation, websites and tools that are not closely tied to the operating system itself.
Over the years, we haven't done a great job of establishing this distinction. Now, let's be more intentional with our language.
I recently asked the editors of Fedora magazine to start using "Fedora Linux" in places where we refer to the operating system. For example: "Using mycoolpackage on Fedora Linux" instead of "Using mycoolpackage on Fedora". The Fedora Program Manager has updated the schedules and the change proposal template to use "Fedora Linux" when appropriate.
The parameter "ID = fedora" will remain unchanged, that is, it is not necessary to modify scripts and conditional blocks in specification files.
On the side of the specialized editions, these will also continue to be distributed under the old names, such as Fedora Workstation, Fedora CoreOS and Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop.
What about editions and other variants? Keep using "Fedora As we are already doing. For example: "Fedora Workstation", not "Fedora Linux Workstation".
The idea of specifying Fedora GNU + Linux instead of Fedora Linux has not been supported as unnecessary words make it difficult to understand and although the components of the GNU project are an important link in Fedora Linux, the distribution is not limited to them and also includes many other packages.
Also, the use of the word "Linux" for distributions has already taken hold and has become a generally accepted term.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it About this news, you can check the details in the original blog post by the Fedora project leader In the following link.